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Take note Mr Hodgson, this is the most profitable England XI this season

Roy Hodgson’s Three Lions go into a couple of tasty looking international friendlies this week, away to the old enemy Germany on Saturday evening, and then hosting the Netherlands on Tuesday at Wembley.

The World Cup Champions and the third-placed team in the space of four days? Not a bad test for Roy Hodgson’s Englandsquad.

But while the Three Lions squad is pretty much nailed, the Paddy Power Blog have put their own spin on England’s best XI. We’ve crunched all the numbers from the Premier League season, and have created England’s Most Profitable XI. Based on sticking £5 on each player to score first in every game this season, these are the 10 outfield men who would have pocketed you the most cash.

Just a couple of quick clarification notes – obviously there are no profitable goalkeepers, but with 13 clean sheets it’d be madness to rule Joe Hart out. Also on our 3-3-4 formation, while it might make GarthCrooks choke on his dinner, it was the best we could do with the profitable players. We’re putting a lot of trust in JamesMilner at centre-back…

As for the 10 players themselves, their total profit for the season so far if you’d been putting £5 on each of them to score first every week is a whopping £527.50.

The most profitable man in the squad, and therefore our imaginary captain in this circumstance is EricDier. The Tottenham man has opened the scoring twice this season, at home to Stoke at odds of 33/1 and at home to Newcastle at odds of 25/1 to give punters a profit of £135.

Alongside him Crystal Palace’s Scott Dann got the first goal of the game at home to Aston Villa (25/1), away to Everton (25/1) and at home to Bournemouth (22/1) to pocket punters a tidy £95.

Elsewhere Aston Villa’s Jack Grealish sneaks into the squad despite making just nine top flight starts this season. He was 11/1 when he opened the scoring away to Leicester in September and makes our team having decided he’d rather fail to win anything with England than fail to win anything with Ireland.

Manchester United striker MarcusRashford may only be 18, and he may only have four Premier League starts to his name, but opening goals at home to Arsenal (13/2) and away to Manchester City (7/1) mean he’s put loyal punters £40 up for the season.

Jamie Vardy is up top alongside him, flanked by Saidio Berahino and Danny Welbeck. Unfortunately for Tottenham fans, Harry Kane misses out. Despite bagging 21 goals this season in 31 starts, eight of which have been the first goal of the game, he’s running at a £15 loss if you had stuck £5 on the Spurs man to score first every week.

It may not be your typical England team, nor may it be a traditional formation. But this is the side that has pocketed punters the most money this season in the top flight, and it might make Roy Hodgson think twice before he makes his Euro 2016 decision.